Frequency of nonparenteral occupational exposures to blood and body fluids before and after universal precautions training.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: During annual periods before and after Universal Precautions training, we compared the frequency of health care workers' self-reported cutaneous exposures to blood and various body substances from any patient and from patients presumed infected with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Self-reported cutaneous exposures to blood, sputum, urine, feces, and other body substances were evaluated separately in 559 workers during the first survey and 269 workers during the second. RESULTS: Mean annual blood exposures decreased from 35.8 to 18.1, and mean annual exposures to all substances decreased from 77.8 to 40.0 (p less than 0.001 for both determinations). Two matched analyses of a subset of 200 participants who completed both surveys had similar results. Reported exposures to blood, presumably infectious blood, sputum, presumably infectious sputum, and urine were significantly decreased. Participants were tested for antibodies to HIV-1; no participant reporting cutaneous exposures acquired HIV-1 infection. The upper bound for the 95% confidence interval for the risk of HIV-1 infection associated with a single cutaneous exposure was 0.04% for blood presumed to contain HIV-1 and 0.02% for any body substance presumed to contain HIV-1. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that Universal Precautions training significantly decreased but did not eliminate cutaneous exposures to blood and body substances. The results further suggest that the risk for HIV-1 infection associated with cutaneous exposures is substantially lower than the risk associated with parenteral exposures.